logic, philosophy ofthe study, from a philosophical perspective, of the nature and types of logic, including problems in the field and the relation of logic to mathematics and other disciplines.

The term logic comes from the Greek word logos. The variety of senses that logos possesses may suggest the difficulties to be encountered in characterizing the nature and scope of logic. Among the partial translations of logos, there are “sentence,” “discourse,” “reason,” “rule,” “ratio,” “account” (especially the account of the meaning of an expression), “rational principle,” and “definition.” Not unlike this proliferation of meanings, the subject matter of logic has been said to be the “laws of thought,” “the rules of right reasoning,” “the principles of valid argumentation,” “the use of certain words labelled ‘logical constants’,” “truths (true propositions) based solely on the meanings of the terms they contain,” and so on.

Logic as a discipline

Nature and varieties of logic

It is relatively easy to discern some order in the above embarrassment of explanations. Some of the characterizations are in fact closely related to each other. When logic is said, for instance, to be the study of the laws of thought, these laws cannot be the empirical (or observable) regularities of actual human thinking as studied in psychology; they must be laws of correct reasoning, which are independent of the psychological idiosyncrasies of the thinker. Moreover, there is a parallelism between correct thinking and valid argumentation: valid argumentation may be thought of as an expression of correct thinking, and the latter as an internalization of the former. In the sense of this parallelism, laws of correct thought will match those of correct argumentation. The characteristic mark of the latter is, in turn, that they do not depend on any particular matters of fact. Whenever an argument that takes a reasoner from p to q is valid, it must hold independently of what he happens to know or believe about the subject matter of p and q. The only other source of the certainty of the connection between p and q, however, is presumably constituted by the meanings of the terms that the propositions p and q contain. These very same meanings will then also make the sentence “If p, then q” true irrespective of all contingent matters of fact. More generally, one can validly argue from p to q if and only if the implication “If p, then q” is logically true—i.e., true in virtue of the meanings of words occurring in p and q, independently of any matter of fact.

Logic may thus be characterized as the study of truths based completely on the meanings of the terms they contain.

In order to accommodate certain traditional ideas with- in within the scope of this formulation, the meanings in question may have to be understood as embodying insights into the essences of the entities denoted by the terms, not merely codifications of customary linguistic usage.

The following proposition (from Aristotle), for instance, is a simple truth of logic: “If sight is perception, the objects of sight are objects of perception.” Its truth can be grasped without holding any opinions as to what, in fact, the relationship of sight to perception is. What is needed is merely an understanding of what is meant by such terms as “if–then,” “is,” and “are,” and an understanding that “object of” expresses some sort of relation.

The logical truth of Aristotle’s sample proposition is reflected by the fact that “The objects of sight are objects of perception” can validly be inferred from “Sight is perception.”

Many questions nevertheless remain unanswered by this characterization. The contrast between matters of fact and relations between meanings that was relied on in the characterization has been challenged, together with the very notion of meaning. Even if both are accepted, there remains a considerable tension between a wider and a narrower conception of logic. According to the wider interpretation, all truths depending only on meanings belong to logic. It is in this sense that the word logic is to be taken in such designations as “epistemic logic” (logic of knowledge), “doxastic logic” (logic of belief), “deontic logic” (logic of norms), “the logic of science,” “inductive logic,” and so on. According to the narrower conception, logical truths obtain (or hold) in virtue of certain specific terms, often called logical constants. Whether they can be given an intrinsic characterization or whether they can be specified only by enumeration is a moot point. It is generally agreed, however, that they include (1) such propositional connectives as “not,” “and,” “or,” and “if–then” and (2) the so-called quantifiers “("x)” (which may be read: “For at least one individual, call it x, it is true that”) and “($x)” (“For each individual, call it x, it is true that”). The dummy letter x is here called a bound (individual) variable. Its values are supposed to be members of some fixed class of entities, called individuals, a class that is variously known as the universe of discourse, the universe presupposed in an interpretation, or the domain of individuals. Its members are said to be quantified over in “("x)” or “($x).” Furthermore, (3) the concept of identity (expressed by =) and (4) some notion of predication (an individual’s having a property or a relation’s holding between several individuals) belong to logic. The forms that the study of these logical constants take are described in greater detail in the article logic, in which the different kinds of logical notation are also explained. Here, only a delineation of the field of logic is given.

When the terms in (1) alone are studied, the field is called propositional logic. When (1), (2), and (4) are considered, the field is the central area of logic that is variously known as first-order logic, quantification theory, lower predicate calculus, lower functional calculus, or elementary logic. If the absence of (3) is stressed, the epithet “without identity” is added, in contrast to first-order logic with identity, in which (3) is also included.

Borderline cases between logical and nonlogical constants are the following (among others): (1) Higher order quantification, which means quantification not over the individuals belonging to a given universe of discourse, as in first-order logic, but also over sets of individuals and sets of n-tuples of individuals. (Alternatively, the properties and relations that specify these sets may be quantified over.) This gives rise to second-order logic. The process can be repeated. Quantification over sets of such sets (or of n-tuples of such sets or over properties and relations of such sets) as are considered in second-order logic gives rise to third-order logic; and all logics of finite order form together the (simple) theory of (finite) types. (2) The membership relation, expressed by ∊, can be grafted on to first-order logic; it gives rise to set theory. (3) The concepts of (logical) necessity and (logical) possibility can be added.

This narrower sense of logic is related to the influential idea of logical form. In any given sentence, all of the nonlogical terms may be replaced by variables of the appropriate type, keeping only the logical constants intact. The result is a formula exhibiting the logical form of the sentence. If the formula results in a true sentence for any substitution of interpreted terms (of the appropriate logical type) for the variables, the formula and the sentence are said to be logically true (in the narrower sense of the expression).

Features and problems of logic

Three areas of general concern are the following.

Logical semantics

For the purpose of clarifying logical truth and hence the concept of logic itself, a tool that has turned out to be more important than the idea of logical form is logical semantics, sometimes also known as model theory. By this is meant a study of the relationships of linguistic expressions to those structures in which they may be interpreted and of which they can then convey information. The crucial idea in this theory is that of truth (absolutely or with respect to an interpretation). It was first analyzed in logical semantics around 1930 by the Polish-American logician Alfred Tarski. In its different variants, logical semantics is the central area in the philosophy of logic. It enables the logician to characterize the notion of logical truth irrespective of the supply of nonlogical constants that happen to be available to be substituted for variables, although this supply had to be used in the characterization that turned on the idea of logical form. It also enables him to identify logically true sentences with those that are true in every interpretation (in “every possible world”).

The ideas on which logical semantics is based are not unproblematic, however. For one thing, a semantical approach presupposes that the language in question can be viewed “from the outside”; i.e., considered as a calculus that can be variously interpreted and not as the all-encompassing medium in which all communication takes place (logic as calculus versus logic as language).

Furthermore, in most of the usual logical semantics the very relations that connect language with reality are left unanalyzed and static. Ludwig Wittgenstein, an Austrian-born philosopher, discussed informally the “language-games”—or rule-governed activities connecting a language with the world—that are supposed to give the expressions of language their meanings; but these games have scarcely been related to any systematic logical theory. Only a few other attempts to study the dynamics of the representative relationships between language and reality have been made. The simplest of these suggestions is perhaps that the semantics of first-order logic should be considered in terms of certain games (in the precise sense of game theory) that are, roughly speaking, attempts to verify a given first-order sentence. The truth of the sentence would then mean the existence of a winning strategy in such a game.

Limitations of logic

Many philosophers are distinctly uneasy about the wider sense of logic. Some of their apprehensions, voiced with special eloquence by a contemporary Harvard University logician, Willard Van Quine, are based on the claim that relations of synonymy cannot be fully determined by empirical means. Other apprehensions have to do with the fact that most extensions of first-order logic do not admit of a complete axiomatization; i.e., their truths cannot all be derived from any finite—or recursive (see below)—set of axioms. This fact was shown by the important “incompleteness” theorems proved in 1931 by Kurt Gödel, an Austrian (later, American) logician, and their various consequences and extensions. (Gödel showed that any consistent axiomatic theory that comprises a certain amount of elementary arithmetic is incapable of being completely axiomatized.) Higher-order logics are in this sense incomplete and so are all reasonably powerful systems of set theory. Although a semantical theory can be built for them, they can scarcely be characterized any longer as giving actual rules—in any case complete rules—for right reasoning or for valid argumentation. Because of this shortcoming, several traditional definitions of logic seem to be inapplicable to these parts of logical studies.

These apprehensions do not arise in the case of modal logic, which may be defined, in the narrow sense, as the study of logical necessity and possibility; for even quantified modal logic admits of a complete axiomatization. Other, related problems nevertheless arise in this area. It is tempting to try to interpret such a notion as logical necessity as a syntactical predicate; i.e., as a predicate the applicability of which depends only on the form of the sentence claimed to be necessary—rather like the applicability of formal rules of proof. It has been shown, however, by Richard Montague, an American logician, that this cannot be done for the usual systems of modal logic.

Logic and computability

These findings of Gödel and Montague are closely related to the general study of computability, which is usually known as recursive function theory (see mathematics, foundations of: The crisis in foundations following 1900: Logicism, formalism, and the metamathematical method) and which is one of the most important branches of contemporary logic. In this part of logic, functions—or laws governing numerical or other precise one-to-one or many-to-one relationships—are studied with regard to the possibility of their being computed; i.e., of being effectively—or mechanically—calculable. Functions that can be so calculated are called recursive. Several different and historically independent attempts have been made to define the class of all recursive functions, and these have turned out to coincide with each other. The claim that recursive functions exhaust the class of all functions that are effectively calculable (in some intuitive informal sense) is known as Church’s thesis (named after the American logician Alonzo Church).

One of the definitions of recursive functions is that they are computable by a kind of idealized automaton known as a Turing machine (named after Alan Mathison Turing, a British mathematician and logician). Recursive function theory may therefore be considered a theory of these idealized automata. The main idealization involved (as compared with actually realizable computers) is the availability of a potentially infinite tape.

The theory of computability prompts many philosophical questions, most of which have not so far been answered satisfactorily. It poses the question, for example, of the extent to which all thinking can be carried out mechanically. Since it quickly turns out that many functions employed in mathematics—including many in elementary number theory—are nonrecursive, one may wonder whether it follows that a mathematician’s mind in thinking of such functions cannot be a mechanism and whether the possibly nonmechanical character of mathematical thinking may have consequences for the problems of determinism and free will. Further work is needed before definitive answers can be given to these important questions.

Issues and developments in the philosophy of logic

In addition to the problems and findings already discussed, the following topics may be mentioned.

Meaning and truth

Since 1950, the concept of analytical truth (logical truth in the wider sense) has been subjected to sharp criticism, especially by Quine. The main objections turned around the nonempirical character of analytical truth (arising from meanings only) and of the concepts in terms of which it could be defined—such as synonymy, meaning, and logical necessity. The critics usually do not contest the claim that logicians can capture synonymies and meanings by starting from first-order logic and adding suitable further assumptions, though definitory identities do not always suffice for this purpose. The crucial criticism is that the empirical meaning of such further “meaning postulates” is not clear.

Logical semantics of modal concepts

In this respect, logicians’ prospects have been enhanced by the development of a semantical theory of modal logic, both in the narrower sense of modal logic, which is restricted to logical necessity and logical possibility, and in the wider sense, in which all concepts that exhibit similar logical behaviour are included. This development, initiated between 1957 and 1959 largely by Stig Kanger of Sweden and Saul Kripke of the U.S., has opened the door to applications in the logical analysis of many philosophically central concepts, such as knowledge, belief, perception, and obligation. Attempts have been made to analyze from the viewpoint of logical semantics such philosophical topics as sense-datum theories, knowledge by acquaintance, the paradox of saying and disbelieving propounded by the British philosopher G.E. Moore, and the traditional distinction between statements de dicto (“from saying”) and statements de re (“from the thing”). These developments also provide a framework in which many of those meaning relations can be codified that go beyond first-order logic, and may perhaps even afford suggestions as to what their empirical content might be.

Intensional logic

Especially in the hands of Montague, the logical semantics of modal notions has blossomed into a general theory of intensional logic; i.e., a theory of such notions as proposition, individual concept, and in general of all entities usually thought of as serving as the meanings of linguistic expressions. (Propositions are the meanings of sentences, individual concepts are those of singular terms, and so on.) A crucial role is here played by the notion of a possible world, which may be thought of as a variant of the logicians’ older notion of model, now conceived of realistically as a serious alternative to the actual course of events in the world. In this analysis, for instance, propositions are functions that correlate possible worlds with truth-values. This correlation may be thought of as spelling out the older idea that to know the meaning of a sentence is to know under what circumstances (in which possible worlds) it would be true.

Logic and information

Even though none of the problems listed seems to affect the interest of logical semantics, its applications are often handicapped by the nature of many of its basic concepts. One may consider, for instance, the analysis of a proposition as a function that correlates possible worlds with truth-values. An arbitrary function of this sort can be thought of (as can functions in general) as an infinite class of pairs of correlated values of an independent variable and of the function, like the coordinate pairs (x, y) of points on a graph. Although propositions are supposed to be meanings of sentences, no one can grasp such an infinite class directly when understanding a sentence; he can do so only by means of some particular algorithm, or recipe (as it were), for computing the function in question. Such particular algorithms come closer in some respects to what is actually needed in the theory of meaning than the meaning entities of the usual intensional logic.

This observation is connected with the fact that, in the usual logical semantics, no finer distinctions are utilized in semantical discussions than logical equivalence. Hence the transition from one sentence to another logically equivalent one is disregarded for the purposes of meaning concepts. This disregard would be justifiable if one of the most famous theses of Logical Positivists were true in a sufficiently strong sense, viz., that logical truths are really tautologies (such as “It is either raining or not raining”) in every interesting objective sense of the word. Many philosophers have been dissatisfied with the stronger forms of this thesis, but only recently have attempts been made to spell out the precise sense in which logical and mathematical truths are informative and not tautologous.

Problems of ontology

Among the ontological problems—problems concerning existence and existential assumptions—arising in logic are those of individuation and existence.

Individuation

Not all interesting interpretational problems are solved by possible-world semantics, as the developments earlier registered are sometimes called. The systematic use of the idea of possible worlds has raised, however, the subject of cross identification; i.e., of the principles according to which a member of one possible world is to be found identical or nonidentical with one of another. Since one can scarcely be said to have a concept of an individual if he cannot locate it in several possible situations, the problem of cross-identification is also one of the most important ingredients of the logical and philosophical problem of individuation. The criticisms that Quine has put forward concerning modal logic and analyticity (see above Limitations of logic) can be deepened into questions concerning methods of cross identification. Although some such methods undoubtedly belong to everyone’s normal unarticulated conceptual repertoire, it is not clear that they are defined or even definable widely enough to enable philosophers to make satisfactory sense of a quantified logic of logical necessity and logical possibility. The precise principles used in ordinary discourse—or even in the language of science—pose a subtle philosophical problem. The extent to which special “essential properties” are relied on in individuation and the role of spatio-temporal frameworks are moot points here. It has also been suggested that essentially different methods of cross identification are actually used together, some of them depending on impersonal descriptive principles and others on the perspective of a person.

Existence and ontology

Because one of the basic concepts of first-order logic is that of existence, as codified by the existential quantifier “("x),” one might suppose that there is little room left for any separate philosophical problem of existence. Yet existence, in fact, does seem to pose a problem, as witnessed by the bulk of the relevant literature. Some issues are relatively easy to clarify. In the usual formulations of first-order logic, for instance, there are “existential presuppositions” present to the effect that none of the singular terms employed is without a bearer (as “Pegasus” is). It is a straightforward matter, however, to dispense with these presuppositions. Though this seems to involve the procedure, branded as inadmissible by many philosophers, of treating existence as a predicate, this can nonetheless be easily done on the formal level. Given certain assumptions, it may even be shown that this “predicate” will have to be “("x) (x = a)” (for “a exists”—literally, “There exists an x such that x is a”) or something equivalent. Furthermore, the logical peculiarities of this predicate seem to explain amply philosophers’ apparent denial of its reality.

The interest in the notion of existence is connected with the question of what entities a theory commits its holder to or what its “ontology” is. The “predicate of existence” just mentioned recalls Quine’s criterion of ontological commitment: “To be is to be a value of a bound variable”—i.e., of the x in ($x) or in ("x). According to Quine, a theory is committed to those and only those entities that in the last analysis serve as the values of its bound variables. Thus ordinary first-order theory commits one to an ontology only of individuals (particulars), whereas higher order logic commits one to the existence of sets—i.e., of collections of definite and distinct entities (or, alternatively, of properties and relations). Likewise, if bound first-order variables are assumed to range over sets (as they do in set theory), a commitment to the existence of these sets is incurred.

The doctrine that an ontology of individuals is all that is needed is known as (the modern version of) nominalism. The opposite view is known as (logical) realism. Even those philosophers who profess sympathy with nominalism find it hard, however, to maintain that mathematics could be built on a consistently nominalistic foundation.

The precise import of Quine’s criterion of ontological commitment, however, is not completely clear. Nor is it clear in what other sense one is perhaps committed by a theory to those entities that are named or otherwise referred to in it but not quantified over in it. Questions can also be raised concerning the very distinction between what in modern logic are usually called individuals (“particulars” would be a more traditional designation) and such universals as their properties and relations; and these questions can be combined with others concerning the “tie” that binds particulars and universals together in predication.

An interesting approach to these problems is the distinction made by Gottlob Frege, a pioneer of mathematical logic in the late 19th century, between individuals—he called them objects—and what he called functions (which in his view include concepts) and his doctrine of the unsaturated character of the latter, according to which a function (as it were) contains a gap, which can be filled by an object. Another approach is the “picture theory of language” of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, according to which a simple sentence presents a person with an isomorphic representation (a “picture”) of reality as it would be if the sentence were true. According to this view (which was later given up by Wittgenstein), “a sentence [or proposition, Satz] is a model of reality such as we think of it as being.”

Alternative logics

The natures of most of the so-called nonclassical logics can be understood against the background of what has here been said. Some of them are simply extensions of the “classical” first-order logic—e.g., modal logics and many versions of intensional logic. The so-called free logics are simply first-order (or modal) logics without existential presuppositions.

One of the most important nonclassical logics is intuitionistic logic, first formalized by the Dutch mathematician Arend Heyting in 1930. It has been shown that this logic can be interpreted in terms of the same kind of modal logic serving as a system of epistemic logic. In the light of its purpose to consider only the known, this isomorphism is suggestive. The avowed purpose of the intuitionist is to consider only what can actually be established constructively in logic and in mathematics—i.e., what can actually be known. Thus, he refuses to consider, for example, “Either A or not-A” as a logical truth, for it does not actually help one in knowing whether A or not-A is the case. This does not close, however, the philosophical problem about intuitionism. Special problems arise from intuitionists’ rejection (in effect) of the nonepistemic aspects of logic, as illustrated by the fact that only a part of epistemic logic is needed in this translation of intuitionistic logic into epistemic logic.

Other new logics are obtained by modifying the rules of those games that are involved in the game-theoretical interpretation of first-order logic mentioned above. The logician may reject, for instance, the assumption that he possesses perfect information, an assumption that characterizes classical first-order logic. One may also try to restrict the strategy sets of the players—to recursive strategies, for example.

Among the oldest kinds of alternative logics are many-valued logics. In them, more truth values than the usual true and false are assumed. The idea seems very natural when considered in abstraction from the actual use of logic. But a philosophically satisfactory interpretation of many-valued logics is not equally straightforward. The interest in finite-valued logics and the applicability of them are sometimes exaggerated. The idea, however, of using the elements of an arbitrary Boolean algebra—a generalized calculus of classes—as abstract truth-values has provided a powerful tool for systematic logical theory.

Logic and other disciplines

Technical disciplines

The relations of logic to mathematics, to computer technology, and to the empirical sciences are here considered.

Mathematics

It is usually said that all of mathematics can, in principle, be formulated in a sufficiently theorem-rich system of axiomatic set theory. What the axioms of a set theory that could accomplish this might be, however, and whether they are at all natural is not obvious in every case. (The recent development in abstract algebra known as category theory offers the most conspicuous examples of these problems.) The axioms of set theory may be presumed to hold in virtue of the meanings of the terms set, member of, and so on. Thus, in some loose sense all of pure mathematics falls within the scope of logic in the wider sense. This assertion is not very informative, however, as long as the logician has no ways of analyzing these meanings so as to be able to tell what assumptions (axioms of set theory) should be adopted. The definitions of basic mathematical concepts (such as “number”) in logical terms proposed by Gottlob Frege (in 1884), by Bertrand Russell (in 1903), and by their successors do not help in this enterprise. It is not clear that more recent insights in logic help very much, either, in the search for strong set-theoretical assumptions. The relationship of mathematics to logic on this level therefore remains ambiguous.

Notwithstanding these deep problems, virtually all normal mathematical argumentation is carried out in logical terms—mostly in first-order terms, but with a generous sprinkling of second-order reasoning and various principles of set theory. Historically speaking, most specific early examples of nontrivial logical reasoning were taken from mathematics.

Often these examples were set in contrast to logical arguments understood in a narrow traditional sense—in a sense narrower still than the idea of logic as being exhausted by quantification theory. According to this traditional view, logic is equated with syllogistic; i.e., with a part of that part of first-order logic that deals with properties and not with relations. Much of what earlier philosophers said of mathematical reasoning must, thus, be understood as applying to relational (first-order) reasoning. The present-day philosophy of logic is therefore as much an heir to traditional philosophy of mathematics as to traditional philosophy of logic.

Specific logical results are applicable in several parts of mathematics, especially in algebra, and various concepts and techniques used by logicians have often been borrowed from mathematics. (Thus one can even speak of “the mathematics of metamathematics.”)

Computers

It has already been indicated that recursive function theory is, in effect, the study of certain idealized automata (computers). It is, in fact, a matter of indifference whether this theory belongs to logic or to computer science. The idealized assumption of a potentially infinite computer tape, however, is not a trivial one: Turing machines typically need plenty of tape in their calculations. Hence the step from Turing machines to finite automata (which are not assumed to have access to an infinite tape) is an important one.

This limitation does not dissociate computer science from logic, however, for other parts of logic are also relevant to computer science and are constantly employed there. Propositional logic may be thought of as the “logic” of certain simple types of switching circuits. There are also close connections between automata theory and the logical and algebraic study of formal languages. An interesting topic on the borderline of logic and computer science is mechanical theorem proving, which derives some of its interest from being a clear-cut instance of the problems of artificial intelligence, especially of the problems of realizing various heuristic modes of thinking on computers. In theoretical discussions in this area, it is nevertheless not always understood how much textbook logic is basically trivial and where the distinctively nontrivial truths of logic (including first-order logic) lie.

Methodology of the empirical sciences

The quest for theoretical self-awareness in the empirical sciences has led to interest in methodological and foundational problems as well as to attempts to axiomatize different empirical theories. Moreover, general methodological problems, such as the nature of scientific explanations, have been discussed intensively among philosophers of science. In all of these endeavours, logic plays an important role.

By and large, there are here three different lines of thought. (1) Often, only the simplest parts of logic—e.g., propositional logic—are appealed to (over and above the mere use of logical notation). Sometimes, claims regarding the usefulness of logic in the methodology of the empirical sciences are, in effect, restricted to such rudimentary applications. This restriction is misleading, however, for most of the interesting and promising connections between methodology and logic lie on a higher level, especially in the area of model theory. In econometrics, for instance, a special case of the logicians’ problems of definability plays an important role under the title “identification problem.” On a more general level, logicians have been able to clarify the concept of a model as it is used in the empirical sciences.

In addition to those employing simple logic, two other contrasting types of theorists can be distinguished: (2) philosophers of science, who rely mostly on first-order formulations, and (3) methodologists (e.g., Patrick Suppes, a U.S. philosopher and behavioral scientist), who want to use the full power of set theory and of the mathematics based on it. Both approaches have advantages. Usually realistic axiomatizations and other reconstructions of actual scientific theories are possible only in terms of set theoretical and other strong mathematical conceptualizations (theories conceived of as “set-theoretical predicates”). In spite of the oversimplification that first-order formulations often entail, however, they can yield theoretical insights because first-order logic (including its model theory) is mastered by logicians much more thoroughly than is set theory.

Many empirical sciences, especially the social sciences, use mathematical tools borrowed from probability theory and statistics, together with such outgrowths of these as decision theory, game theory, utility theory, and operations research. A modest but not uninteresting beginning in the study of their foundations has been made in modern inductive logic.

Human disciplines

The relations of logic to linguistics, psychology, law, and education are here considered.

Linguistics

The revival of interest in semantics among theoretical linguists in the late 1960s awakened their interest in the interrelations of logic and linguistic theory as well. It was also discovered that certain grammatical problems are closely related to logicians’ concepts and theories. A near-identity of linguistics and “natural logic” has been claimed by the U.S. linguist George Lakoff. Among the many conflicting and controversial developments in this area, special mention may perhaps be made of attempts by Jerrold J. Katz, a U.S. grammarian-philosopher, and others to give a linguistic characterization of such fundamental logical notions as analyticity; the sketch by Montague of a “universal grammar” based on his intensional logic; and the suggestion (by several logicians and linguists) that what linguists call “deep structure” is to be identified with logical form. Of a much less controversial nature is the extensive and fruitful use of recursive function theory and related areas of logic in formal grammars and in the formal models of language users.

Psychology

Although the “laws of thought” studied in logic are not the empirical generalizations of a psychologist, they can serve as a conceptual framework for psychological theorizing. Probably the best known recent example of such theorizing is the large-scale attempt made in the mid-20th century by Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, to characterize the developmental stages of a child’s thought by reference to the logical structures that he can master.

Elsewhere in psychology, logic is employed mostly as an ingredient of various models using mathematical ideas or ideas drawn from such areas as automata or information theory. Large-scale direct uses are rare, however, partly because of the problems mentioned above in the section on logic and information.

Law

Of the great variety of kinds of argumentation used in the law, some are persuasive rather than strictly logical, and others exemplify different procedures in applied logic rather than the formulas of pure logic. Examinations of “Lawiers Logike”—as the subject was called in 1588—have also uncovered a variety of arguments belonging to the various departments of logic mentioned above. Such inquiries do not seem to catch the most characteristic kinds of legal conceptualization, however—with one exception, viz., a theory developed by Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld, a pre-World War I U.S. legal scholar, of what he called the fundamental legal conceptions. Although originally presented in informal terms, this theory is closely related to recent deontic logic (in some cases in combination with suitable causal notions). Even some of the apparent difficulties are shared by the two approaches: the deontic logician’s notion of permission, for example, which is often thought of as being unduly weak, is to all practical purposes a generalization of Hohfeld’s concept of privilege.

Education

After having been one of the main ingredients of the general school curriculum for centuries, logic virtually disappeared from liberal education during the first half of the 20th century. It has made major inroads back into school curricula, however, as a part of the new mathematical curriculum that came into fairly general use in the 1960s, which normally includes the elements of propositional logic and of set theory. Logic is also easily adapted to being taught by computers and has been used in experiments with computer-based education.